Another stupid Haruhi story
by MewShiny
Summary: The SOS Brigade has been missing something from the very beginning... could that be the cause of this coming 'storm'...  What does fate hold in store for the SOS Brigade?
1. Prologue: the calm

The SOS Brigade, a completely enigmatic group that is based at North High though it was never able to achieve official status as a student association. What's more no one besides this group's merciless leader really has any idea what the purpose of the group is, not even it's freak show cast of members. About a year ago I would have been disappointed to admit that I'm one of them, but I've gotten over that and now am regretfully proud to say that I'm a member of the SOS Brigade.

Now this obnoxious group had five members; me, Haruhi Suzumiya, Yuki Nagato, Mikuru Asahina, and Itsuki Koizumi.

Of the above five the most reliable by far has always been Nagato. The near silent girl with lavender hair and violet eyes which betrayed very little emotion had originally belonged to the literature club as it's only member. Not long after the brigades unofficial founding she confided in me that she was not a normal human and instead was a humanoid interface created by aliens to watch over Haruhi,since that time she's saved me from so many ridiculous situations that I would never be able to fully repay her even if I spent my entire life trying.

Then there's Asahina. She's the baby-faced mascot of the SOS Brigade, of course she'd been the obvious choice for that role, what with her beautiful orangeish red hair and her chest which one might believe was a never ending supply of water balloons. I had been slow to believe her when she told me that she was actually from the future and like Nagato her purpose was to watch Haruhi. Her time traveling has gotten me into several troublesome situations, but since it's Asahina I forgive her for it.

Next would be Koizumi. He was dragged into the group simply for being 'a mysterious transfer student' as Haruhi had dubbed him. A bishonen with chestnut hair sharp eyes and a rather suspicious smile, I managed to guess that he was an esper despite his useless seeming powers. I guess I could say he's helped me out of several situations as well, but he had a hand in causing several of them, so I really can't say it's very appreciated. Oh and I may as well go ahead and mention he's also watching after Haruhi.

So I guess by now you're probably wondering about Haruhi, well here it goes. Snow white skin, a pretty face, black hair tied with a golden ribbon, a fair amount of chest, good grades without trying; she's perfect, until she opens her mouth. She can do pretty much anything she wants without a single mistake, there's not a single sports team that doesn't want her for her limitless energy and skill, but she doesn't care. Little does she know that she has some sort of special ability to change the world around her as she sees fit, of course it's because of this that the others are watching her. She's the leader of the SOS Brigade who runs around on a wild goose chase looking for the paranormal without noticing the group she's leading around is made up of exactly what she's looking for. She's rambunctious, obnoxious, and has a tendency to blow things way out of proportion, she also seems to get exactly what she wants all the time. No matter how I look at it she's like a spoiled little kid. With all that said... the sight of her with her hair in a ponytail makes my heart beat a mile a minute.

And now it's just down to me, my name is... well everyone just calls me by my stupid nickname, Kyon, anyway so you should just call me that and avoid confusion. Apparently I accidentally was the one who gave Haruhi the idea to start this crazy club... at this point I'm not sure if I regret it or not. Now then in case you're wondering, I'm not a slider, a transforming hero, a robot, a demon, exorcist, or anything like that, in fact I'm a perfectly normal human. The only special abilities I seem to possess are the ability to accept all this nonsense as the truth and the power to use sarcasm to make light of any ridiculous situation I find myself in, oh and I know the key to setting Haruhi off like an insane bomb. All I have to do is say, "I am John Smith," and she'll believe me if I tell her the truth that everyone's been hiding from her.

In that first year of high school I'd become accustomed to an usual school life, I never could be sure what would happen on a day to day basis. One moment Haruhi would be all excited and happy the next she was melancholic and more than likely accidentally destroying the world. Somehow I had become used to such and abnormal thing, I was no longer surprised to see near death situations crop up, and I had grown used to the feelings of the storm and the calms before and after it.

So I was one of the few people qualified to say that I felt that something strange would be happening soon... then I would hope to whatever god is willing to hear me out that I was wrong. After all as strange things had become normal for me, if something I thought was strange was comeing then it probably would be something that had gone so far across the line of common sense that the average person would go insane from just a single passing glance.

Of course this was one of those uneasy times. The calm before the storm.


	2. The storm's arrival

_(A/N: I had no plot in mind when I wrote that prolouge so this is how it turned out... Akira is an OC of mine if it wasn't already obvious... well I hope you enjoy it I tried to write it well but I'm afraid it won't meant the expectations that the prolouge may have brought about.)_

...

I sat in the clubroom, alone besides the presence of Nagato who moved only to flip the pages of her book, so still any visitor to the club might would mistakenly think that I was the only one in the room. The dull beige walls of the small square room where nearly hidden by all the things, either used once or never used, which Haruhi had brought into the clubroom since founding the club. Also in the room was the costume rack for the outfits that Haruhi was constantly forcing Asahina to wear and the computers which had all been taken rather unfairly from the computer research society.

With nothing better to do until more people arrived, as attempting to start a conversation with Nagato would be utterly useless, I began to mess around with the laptop computer in front of the seat I'd sat down in. After several moments passed Koizumi entered and I abandoned the laptop to go beat him at othello as per usual.

Not long after that Asahina arrived so Koizumi and I were chased into the hall while she changed into the maid outfit which Haruhi forced her to wear in the clubroom, after which we returned and she served tea. That maid outfit was beautiful every time I saw it, Asahina had even grown a bit since last year so now her SOS Brigade uniform was showing even more skin, not that anyone minded.

Soon Haruhi had burst into the room, she quickly expressed her displeasure at the fact that we were not doing anything interesting, of course she would have been even more unhappy if we'd been doing anything interesting without her. There's no way to win, really.

With that all members of the SOS brigade had entered the clubroom. There had only ever been two or three instances of anyone besides an SOS Brigade member come to visit the SOS Brigade clubroom of their own accord in SOS Brigade history, so I'm sure you can imagine my surprise when there was a knock on the door.

Shocked I looked around to make sure that all members really were there and I wasn't imagining things, _Koizumi in front of me trying desperately not to lose his twelfth game in a row, Nagato sitting in the corner of the room reading what appeared to be a foreign dictionary, Haruhi was messing with the computer of her 'brigade chief' desk, and Asahina sitting next to Koizumi doing her homework and giving me a wonderful view._

Asahina seemed to also be sweeping the room to be sure everyone was here, but it was clear that she was a bit nervous. Koizumi tensed up a little, his eternal smile slightly faded, looked at the door with an unusual expression. Nagato didn't miss a beat, she continued reading her book, but unless I'm mistaken there was a hint of concern in her eyes. Haruhi looked so happy I was worried she might wet herself, but fortunately she didn't.

"Kyon what are you waiting for? Get the door already!" Haruhi commanded.

"Why me?" I mumbled under my breath as I got up and answered d the door anyway after deciding that being forced to once again cover the role 'errand boy' wasn't worth setting off her wrath.

As I opened the door a small girl gave me a curt nod and entered the room. She had piercing eyes so dark a brown that it was near impossible to tell where the pupils began, her blond hair was straight as a pencil as it flowed behind her just barely touching the floor, she had a small build but was still bigger than Asahina had been (except in some area's) when I had first met her. All in all she was pretty cute, but she made me feel uneasy.

"This is the clubroom of the SOS Brigade, correct? Allow me to introduce myself, freshman, Akira Mitsuki. I would like to join this club," The girl spoke with an American accent that suited her appearance, but she was speaking Japanese flawlessly.

I did a double take, this girl couldn't be serious right? She must've not heard the rumors that this was an odd group if she had she wouldn't have wanted to join, or if she had she must be crazier than Haruhi! At least that's what I had been thinking, but something wasn't right and that wasn't that if Haruhi accepted her that she would be the only member to ever join without being abducted so far, or maybe I was just over thinking things.

"Are you sure about that? I mean you don't even know what this club does, are you really okay with joining just like that?" I asked in a whisper so that she would be the only one that could hear me (expect maybe Nagato but she was a bit preoccupied), "If you join this group no one can guarantee what happens next."

"This is something I have to do, there was no other way..." She whispered back, but I wasn't able to catch everything she said it probably would have confused me even further if I had, "I can't turn back now. Not after I resolved to do this."

"What makes you think you're worthy of joining the SOS Brigade? Don't waste my time!" Haruhi said suddenly.

_So this is what happens if someone tries to join, she won't let just anyone in,_ I thought as I turned to Haruhi, _she defiantly wouldn't let someone like this join her club._

"Ah ha a test! Such is to be expected from the leader of the SOS Brigade! Honestly this was supposed to be a secret... but the only way I can get into the club is if I do or say something impressive right?" Mitsuki waited for Haruhi to nod before continuing, " You see... I'm actually a spy sent from another dimension in order to save the worlds, that is to say both mine and this one, but I can't do it alone. I'll need the help of the SOS Brigade of this world if I'm to complete my mission!"

"Really?" Haruhi asked in a shout.

_What you're just going to believe her like that?_

"Nope, less than half of that was true," She replied with an obnoxious tone, "In actuality I'm a mage working for a top secret organization, and I'm here on a mission to infiltrate this school and I know I'll stand out to much if I don't join a club so naturally I chose the most interesting club to hide myself inside and pose as a normal girl!"

Haruhi seemed to take a moment as if deciding whether or not to believe the insane lies that the girl had just produced, then Haruhi made a response, "Ok you can join, you'll be the SOS Brigade's story teller."

_Please don't tell me that she out ranks me... well I guess anything out ranks errand boy. Wait, what on Earth does Haruhi think that club members are meant to do anyway?_ Don't answer that, I don't want to know.

"It's an honor," Mitsuki said with an smile that I found strangely creepy, though it was no where near as creepy as Koizumi's.

After that the club meeting went on as normal, that is to say we did pretty much nothing. As I said before the only person who really knows what this club is supposed to be doing is Haruhi, the rest of us have no clue, that is unless Koizumi knows something he hasn't told me yet. Point is on most days there is no club activity, we just sit around because Haruhi forces us to come here everyday.

The new girl spent a good deal of time talking with Haruhi, but I wasn't worried, it seemed the only thing was really any good at was making up ridiculous lies and keeping Haruhi interested. Of course that could have been a clever ploy to make the other brigade members let their guards down while she went through some fiendish plot to take over the world or something, to bad I don't really care if she's up to anything or not, I'm no conspiracy theorist. I just don't want to be involved.

To my luck Haruhi left first, leaving the rest of us free to say whatever we felt was necessary to figure out weather or not the girl was up to anything. Unsure of what to say we all waited there in silence for a moment, just waiting for someone to speak up, but no one seemed to want to be the one to do it.

"Don't worry," The girl, Mitsuki, said in a dull tone while her bangs covered her eyes in darkness, "My presence here shouldn't cause issue for any of you, and I have no ill intent. However if any of you attempt to get in my way I can promise this attempt will be futile and it will likely be the last thing you ever do, so I strongly urge you not to as it would just suffice to annoy me. I'll be going now."

After saying such a thing everyone in the room stopped in their tracks she alone moved as she began to walk towards the door.

For some reason I was reminded of the first words that I'd ever heard Haruhi say, her self introduction from the first day of school, 'Haruhi Suzumiya from East Middle. If there are any aliens, time travelers, sliders, or espers here come and join me. That is all.' That's then when the thought occurred to me, _there's been something missing from the SOS Brigade from the very beginning_...

"Wait, Mitsuki, you wouldn't happen to really be a slider would you?" I said stopping her as her hand rested on the doorknob.

She looked at me with a bit of a devious smirk, "It's a bit of an understatement but I suppose that label will do. I'll explain everything in due time." With that she began to walk out the door, but stopped for a moment to say, "Oh, and you can just call me 'Akira' all this formality is just annoying."

She continued on her way without even waiting for a response.

"She's defiantly no good," Koizumi said once Akira seemed to be out of earshot.

Mikuru, who now seemed a bit shaken, agreed, "She's dangerous."

"We should not let her get to close to Haruhi Suzumiya," Nagato said, but she offered no explanation, as usual she acted as though what she'd said had been enough for us to understand.

Koizumi looked at me as though expecting that I'd have anything useful to add and asked, "What did you think of her?"

"She's up to something," I said remembering how uneasy it had made me feel when she entered the clubroom, "and whatever it is... it isn't good."


	3. The new girl's intent

_(A/N: I'm sorry this story probably doesn't feel much like a Haruhi story... I know that the mood is all off and after a while I'm not able to use Kyon's sarcastic tone as well. This story might actually get somewhere in this chapter, and you readers will learn a few interesting things about Akira. On the bright side...More dialogue in this chapter! Yay! And on that note ~enjoy)_

...

In the morning when I woke up, everything was the same as it had ever been, I guess the only thing that had changed was my mood or maybe the right word would be motivation. I really couldn't care less what was going on, but since I already knew that something was I couldn't help but spend countless moments worrying about it. So of course that night I'd barely managed to get any sleep at all, because even Nagato had seemed worried about the event at hand.

As much as I would have loved attempting to skip school, I knew that if I went to school I'd probably wind up finding out about and getting tangled up in some business involving that new girl that I really would not want to be involved in. So despite the my drowsiness as I walked up the hill toward the school I continued on my way.

As if to prove my point as I was about to enter the school gates Koizumi came up beside me and as we continued to walk the path into the school he spoke in a whisper, "Last night I asked my superiors in the Organization to do a check on 'Akira Mitsuki'."

"So, is she secretly a famous murderer or a con artist? Can't this wait?" I yawned. Just leave me in peace so I can get to homeroom and sleep.

"This school has no records of a freshman -or any student- by that name," Koizumi said with his usual enigmatic smile still intact, "In fact the Organization couldn't find any records of anyone by that name ever having existed."

It took me a moment to under stand what he'd said, but as soon as I did the odd statement snapped me awake, "Then it's a fake name?"

"Either that or she really is a slider and has come here from another dimension, I believe the later is more likely," Koizumi's serious expression was giving me the chills.

"So why did she bother coming here from her world? What does she want from Haruhi?" I couldn't help but ask the important questions that wear beginning to nag me, but by that point I was almost certain that the answer was one I'd rather not hear.

"Well about that..." Koizumi trail off for a moment, probably choosing his words carefully, "She doesn't seem to be willing to tell us -that is to say the members of the organization- what she's up to, and she's very careful not to let us find out, it's almost as though she can tell what's going on around her without even looking. So, we were hoping that you would ask for us."

_What the... why do I get the feeling he's leaving something really important out._ It's probably because he was.

"Wha- Why do you want me to do it? If your Organization couldn't get any information out of her what on earth makes you think I can?" My exclamation was somewhere between a whisper and a shout, Koizumi sighed.

"While one of our member's was trying to get information out of her she glared at them and said, '_Try all you want but I'll never tell your lot a single bit of useful information. There's only one person that I will give information to, what he does with it is his choice_.' We've decided that the person she's willing to tell her her intentions to must be you."

What a strange condition, it seems this Akira girl really is going to be a troublesome person to deal with. Maybe more troublesome than Haruhi (is that even possible?) well this girl at least seemed to know what she was capable of, that's a plus... I guess. Is that why the organization is just tossing me at her? Wait... they're using me as an errand boy too!

"From what she said it could have easily been any guy in the world... in any world. What would make you think she means me?" I asked, hoping it was a steady defense because I didn't really want to spend anymore time with that troublesome girl than necessary.

Koizumi cut to the chase, "Yesterday in the clubroom when you asked her if she was a slider, she responded. We have come to believe that her answer was honest because we can't seem to find any records of her anywhere. So it's pretty safe to assume that you're the person she's willing to entrust information to."

"Fine I'll try talking to her after club activities today, I'll call you when I'm-" I started, only to be interrupted by Koizumi.

"Talk to her at lunch."

The bell rang for students to get in their classrooms so without an chance to argue Koizumi and I parted ways. I sighed, _lunch it is then, it's not like I had anything prepared to eat anyway, though Haruhi might get mad if I don't sit with her.  
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I sat through class unable to really pay attention, just thinking about whatever my mind wandered to. Though out the period of one class I thought about everything that had happened to me so far, and everything that could happen in the near future_, _I pondered on every outrageous theory that I'd been told or theorized myself and unbelievable sight I'd seen happening before me. It cam to my attention that my life had reached the point where no matter what happened around me I had stopped questioning my own sanity, because after everything that's happened it's the only thing I can be sure of, at least I hope so.

_Yes, I'm screwed, but at least I never get bored. Ever._

In any case while I was lost in thought reminiscing, Time passed by quickly and it was soon time for lunch, or rather my confrontation with the strange and secretive new girl. When she had been talking to Haruhi the day before she mentioned which freshman class she was in, so I had no trouble finding her.

I approached her from behind, just as I was about to greet her she turned to me and smiled, "Hello Kyon, you took a bit longer than I'd expected."

_Even the underclassmen call me by that stupid nickname... well it was probably Haruhi's obscure introductions yesterday that caused her to do it. _Of course that didn't matter, she'd _expected _me to come, there's no way that's a good thing.

"To be sure no one overhears anything that's about to be said perhaps we should move to a more private location? I'd rather uninvolved people not overhear me saying strange things. Don't worry it shouldn't take long, I only plan to tell you the most important things, but if you want to hear everything we can meet up at a more flexible time."

She led me to the place where Koizumi had bought me coffee and explained that he was a esper, I guess the park bench isn't the only mecca for weirdos in this town.

"What's up with the condition that you'll only tell me any information?" I asked as soon as we had both sat down, in hopes of not getting swept away with her pace.

"In everything there is a certain procedure that must be followed," She said, her voice gave the tone that she thought what she was saying was completely obvious, "In order to get close to Haruhi, one must first get reasonably close to you. Thus any confessions about my identify or motives are to be made to you. As part of what I need to do requires getting close to Haruhi, I must follow that procedure."

_Why did I even bother asking?_ I sighed, "So you're trying to get close to Haruhi then, is that it?"

"I'm afraid it's not quite that simple, you see, Haruhi's power has grown strong enough that it is beginning to effect the world that I came from. It's effects have been disastrous, so naturally my wish is to remove her influence from my home," Akira spoke quietly with a sincere expression, "I know that it will not be an easy task but I must try for the sake of my friends back in that world."

"If you don't mind my asking, how do you plan to get Haruhi's 'influence' out of your world, and what exactly has it been doing there." Just out of curiosity.

She sighed, "I intend to place a weak seal on her power that will greatly weaken it's effects on the dimensional planes. As for what she's done to my world, she's greatly weakened the abilities of me and my comrades (yes, I am not alone in my work, though there are very few of us) and also created an increase of dimensional faults with those 'closed spaces' of her's. Not to mention, my hair _wasn't_ originally blond... my hair is really _supposed_ to be black, a good few similar events also occurred."

_Haruhi changed this girl's hair color on a whim? Is nothing sacred?_ I couldn't help but feel sorry for her, I mean not only had Haruhi's closed spaces apparently created more work for her, Haruhi's power had also made the work harder by weakening her powers, and if that wasn't enough she randomly changed her hair color. Haruhi had gone to far.

"That sounds really important..." I said just to break the silence, "Is it really okay for someone as young as you to be sent for something as important as this?"

Akira giggled for a moment before finally speaking, "I'm flattered, but honestly I'm no where near as young as I appear, I've already lived much longer than someone like you could ever imagine. I can't be sure exactly how old I really am, as recently it has come to my attention that most of my childhood memories are false and that may also be Haruhi's doing, but I'm more than certain that the number is far past the millions. I do look quite young for my age don't I?"

Young for her age didn't seem to cover it at all, not if she was more than a million. For goodness sake, she only looked about fourteen or fifteen, maybe sixteen if you stretch it, how on earth is this even possible. I want to smack whoever it is that's in charge of the time-space continuum, there's something wrong with their system.

"Ah, that should be enough about me," Akira said suddenly, "The reason I've called you out is I want to know, are you willing to side with me in this situation? You see since my plan involves limiting a portion of Haruhi's power the other members of the SOS Brigade will surely be against it, especially Yuki whose job is to observe Haruhi and her power. They'll defiantly not want me to succeeded, they'll try to get in my way, and weakened as I am right now I may not be able to stop them, but if you were to side with me then my success would be guaranteed. Where Haruhi is concerned the others fully trust your judgment, if you make a choice they are likely to follow your will."

I was completely taken aback, what was I supposed to say to that? Yes or No? She want's me to help her, but is helping her the right thing to do, the cost is going against the rest of the SOS Brigade. This is all to much... I can't possibly...

"I won't ask you to make your decision right now. Give me the answer tomorrow before club activities, until then I will take no action." She stood up and began walking away, without every facing me she added, " The bell signaling that lunch is over will ring in approximately thirty seconds, I suggest you get to your class."

Before fully processing what she said and running to my classroom I simply sat there dumbfounded. I had been once again left with a choice that might (well it probably would) effect the fate of the world, I'm beginning to think that the world hates me.


	4. A choice and contradiction

Just as I always do that afternoon I walked lazily from the classroom to the clubroom, luckily for me everyone besides Haruhi ans Akira had already arrived. Taking advantage of the lucky situation, I halfheartedly tried to relay everything that Akira had said to me to Koizumi and the others, of course I glazed over the bit where she wanted me to pick which side I wanted to be on because that was the only way I would be able to avoid being asked which side I'd chosen.

"I was afraid it would be something like that..." Koizumi said with a sigh, "There's no possibility for any sort of compromise."

"I feel kind of sorry for her though, it seems like Suzumiya is causing all sorts of problems for her and her friends," Asahina said flashing an adorable conflicted expression, "But my superiors have told me that we can't let Akira do as she wants... or else things might turn out bad."

Nagato was the last to respond, "The integrated data thought entity will not allow this, it believes that if a portion of Haruhi Suzumiya's power is sealed then it may lose it's potential chance for auto evolution. No matter what, I am to prevent that girl from fulfilling her purpose."

Well that defiantly leaves me in a tight situation. I still have to make a choice about what side I'm on. If I side with Akira then I have Nagato, not to mention Koizumi's entire well-resourced Organization, against me. However I get the feeling that It'd be bad to go against Akira too, I still haven't forgotten what she said her first day in the club, '_if any of you attempt to get in my way I can promise this attempt will be futile and it will likely be the last thing you ever do_,' if that doesn't justify not wanting to go against a person I don't know what does. Is there anyway I can just stay out of this mess? Of course not, Akira has already forced me to be involved.

"Akira still hasn't told you everything, has she? She probably left out enough details to give her story a positive spin in her favor," Koizumi said.

Of course I had to agree with him, she'd kept saying things like, 'I'll tell you the important things for now,' and, 'that's enough about me,' it was a reasonable conclusion that she had something left to tell me or something she didn't want to tell me. Now that it's been pointed out I can't help but wonder what she could be hiding. Someone as mysterious as her was bound to have a few skeletons in their closet, right? Darn it, now I sound like Haruhi.

"Well she said that if I wanted to know more than what she told me that we could arrange another meeting, maybe I should do that?" I suggested, "I can figure out what she hasn't told me yet."

"But until then we need to make sure she doesn't have the chance to be alone with Haruhi, we never know when she might try to make a move," Koizumi said, I didn't bother to tell him that she wouldn't take any action until tomorrow after club activities because she was waiting for my decision, that would require me telling them I was making such an important decision.

Asahina thought for a moment before saying, "Wait, where are those two right now? They should have gotten here by now. Is it possible that Akira and Suzumiya are alone together right now?"

Koizumi began to open his mouth, perhaps to say that it was possible, but whatever he was going to say was interrupted by the sound of the clubroom door creaking open.

"I am not," Akira said entering the room, "I simply wished to give you lot some time to talk amongst yourselves about what I had told Kyon earlier. Although I did speak to Haruhi. I told her that I had seen a _Zashiki Warashi_ near the bamboo thicket on the other side of the grounds, needless to say she raced off in that direction with a hopeful expression. She'll likely spend another hour searching in vain, so you have about that long to ask me whatever you please."

Awestruck everyone seemed to stare at the strange girl as she walked to an empty chair and sat down, though looking back on it there weren't so much staring as glaring. Even Nagato's near expressionless face seemed to glare at Akira.

As much as I had grown to love the silence of the SOS Brigade clubroom, as it usually meant that for the moment Haruhi was not about to accidentally destroy the world, but this silence was almost suffocating. The pressure of the tension in the room was so strong that I was beginning to feel a bit dizzy. Why wasn't anyone saying anything?

Unable to take the silence any longer I broke it with a pointless question, "and _was_ there a _Zashiki Warashi_?"

Akira laughed, "Of course not, as much as my lot doesn't particularly care about Haruhi in normal circumstances it would be foolish of me to expose her to certain paranormal things and get even further on this lot's bad side. Though if you're interested in _Zashiki Warashi_ I could _help_ you find one. God knows you could use the blessing."

_Was that last bit supposed to be a joke? I'm not laughing. Don't make fun of my ridiculous life._ Even though I hadn't spoken out loud Akira smiles at me a little bit. _Don't tell me it really was meant to be a joke._

"Why haven't you already began to do what you came to this place for?" Asahina asked. I was a bit startled that she had been the first one to ask a plausible question, normally she would be fidgeting in the background or clutching my arm if something like this happened.

"Because for certain reasons that will remain undisclosed I will be taking no action until tomorrow afternoon," Akira replied dully, "You can relax, I will not go back on my word."

I guess that last comment was meant for me. Not that it mattered so much, I was just glad she didn't mention my having to make a choice. Although I guess it would be just as inconvenient for her if they knew about that because they'd be trying to convince me to stay on their side, so she probably didn't risk it because it was to her gain if they didn't know.

"Just to be clear," Koizumi began, "You plan to seal off the portion of Suzumiya's powers that is affecting the world that you came from?"

"That is indeed my plan," Akira's eyes narrowed as she spoke in an accusing tone, "Do you intend to attempt to talk me out of doing so? Or perhaps you think there's a better way for me to achieve the same goal? I don't see any reason that some one like you should be upset as my plan will have little or no affect on your life, Itsuki Koizumi. In fact, if I were to have my way the workload of your Organization would likely be less."

Well I guess that makes sense, if Haruhi has less effect on different dimensions then closed spaces wouldn't occur as often, or maybe would at least be smaller. Akira seems to have a point, Koizumi doesn't seem to have any reason to be against her. That's probably why she'd said all of it, to see if there was any chance she wouldn't have to face the full force of the Organization, regardless of my choice.

It apparently made less sense to Koizumi, he was clearly angrier than I'd ever seen him in all the time I'd known him. He grabbed her shoulder and violently pushed her against the nearest wall.

"That power is something that Suzumiya was born with! You shouldn't be trying to limit it!" He said in a voice that was between a shout and a whisper, "Someone like you should be able to come up with a better way to solve this!"

She didn't even flinch or shout, but instead gave him an unwavering glare and replied in a clam, cold tone "I understand what you're saying. Normally your eyes are like mirrors that keep anyone from being able to see your true nature, but as you are now I can see right through you. You're nothing more than a coward and a hypocrite. You're afraid that if the amount of power Haruhi holds decreases then the Organization will have less need of subordinates watching her and that you'll be cast from her side. You say that I shouldn't limit her power but is that not exactly what your pathetic organization is doing by keeping her monitored constantly? Furthermore, how can you be sure that Haruhi was born with the power she currently holds, that's what you were told by that organization which holds more liars than only you, there are plenty of other explanations for the current scenario, however whatever the true case maybe I don't have enough time left to create a plan that will keep everyone happy."

Koizumi's grip on her shoulder loosened and he began to back away warily, at some point he even tripped over his own feet, he seemed to be so shaken by her words that he was twitching, "...I...I."

I sort of enjoyed watching Koizumi twitch like this. I mean he was _always_ annoying and way to smiley, so seeing him like this was a bit of a nice change of pace. It was good to know that he wasn't as creepily smiley as I'd originally thought, but this wasn't alright at all.

Akira had gone too far. I can understand that what she's doing is all to protect some friends of hers or something like that, but after seeing her do well whatever it is she'd just done... I just couldn't stand for it.

I stepped forward so that I was in front of Koizumi.

"Akira," I said, my voice quivered a little bit because by this point I felt certain she was as dangerous as the others said she was, "I will never be on your side, I don't care about your stupid dimension, but the members of this club are my friends and I won't let you hurt them like this."

Quite frankly I'm not really sure what came over me. I knew I wouldn't be enough to stand up to her on my own, even if she is weakened. I guess I'd just finally snapped, I'd known it was the right choice from the very beginning, why did I even bother thinking about it.

She looked at me with the sort of tender smile a mother would give a child that was running away from home, "You'll regret this choice... Kyon."

At that point I didn't really have time to regret anything, not that I think I would have, because that was the exact moment that Haruhi came bursting through the door. Well she certainly does have perfect timing. She gave a curious look around the clubroom, I can't even imagine what the scene in front of her must have looked like; Koizumi sitting twichily on the floor behind me, who was now looking at Akira with a death glare that almost would rival Haruhi's own, Akira's forlorned return expression, Asahina's scared look near the back of the clubroom, Nagato no longer reading but watching intently, ready to help me if he need should arise. I'm sure it was a strange sight even by Haruhi standards.

"...What's going on?"

"Oh, while we were waiting for you we thought we'd partake in a bit of role play," Akira said laughing it all off as though nothing had just happened, "I must say these two most certainly get into their characters very well."

Haruhi looked disbelieving, but apparently didn't care enough to point out any obvious flaws in Akira's explanation, "That's perfect, I was thinking it was about time the SOS Brigade made a second movie. This time Yuki, the alien mage, and Mikuru, the combat waitress from the future, will join forces to defeat a common enemy, that's Akira, she'll be an evil girl from another dimension. Koizumi is of course still a powerful esper that has fallen for Mikuru. Oh, Kyon you can be in it too, we'll just get your idiot friends to do your old job, let's see... you'll be Akira's sidekick or something like that."

_What the... Why am I an evil sidekick._ I said as much out loud, but unfortunately for my status as the hero I was ignored.

"I'm the villain? I'd be honored," Akira said, flashing a sly smile, "and you're even giving me a sidekick, well it's nice to have someone on my side."

Why do I get the feeling that this won't end well for me? That's probably because these things never do.


	5. I should write a book

"Yuki Nagato, Mikuru Asahina, the two of you really want to fight me?" Akira said with a dark toned voice, "Very well I accept your challenge! Don't think I'll go easy on you!"

Asahina let out an adorable squeal to express that she was afraid of this, while Nagato's eyes narrowed to a somewhat hateful expression, "I would not want it any other way."

"Then I'll try not to disappoint you," Akira laughed as she seemed to pull a full sized katana out of nowhere. A strange sort of aura appeared around her as she began to charge at her opponents, Nagato was of course prepared for this, Nagato moved so quickly that I couldn't see her move at all as she vaulted placing only one hand on Akira's shoulder as she passed. "Oh, so you're going to play it that way, Nagato?"

Akira didn't stop when her attack on Nagato had failed, she was now headed straight at Asahina, "If that's the case I'll just attack the weak link!"

_What the heck is this a scene from a battle manga? Isn't this completely pointless?  
><em>

Asahina managed to barely avoid the attack by dodging left when she would have usually ducked. Good luck Asahina! Akira was about to sweep the katana around in another attempt to hit Asahina, however this time Nagato sped in and grabbed the blade before the sword wielding girl could strike.

Now by this point I'm sure everyone who's been reading up to this point is wondering how we got in to such a situation, or maybe you've already figured it out. Either way perhaps I should go back a little bit and explain... It all started when I came to the clubroom after school that day.

Haruhi had already arrived and was clearly pumped, this was of course because it was the first day we would be shooting on the SOS Brigades second short movie. Quite frankly the very idea of it gave me the chills, after all the last movie didn't exactly go smoothly, and this time around we had another troublesome person.

It was decided that we would be using the same camera, props and costumes (Akira seemed to have brought a costume of her own, a long blue coat of some sort and a pair of pants with crosses on the knees, it seemed to suit her pretty well) as last time, the only major difference was that this time Haruhi had roped Taniguchi in and forced him to be the camera man. Although not long after we began shooting Haruhi said that she wanted us to do the epic battle scene first so we wouldn't be able to complain about being tired later on, smart, twisted but smart. I'm sure you're wondering why this matters, well I guess under normal circumstances it wouldn't, but this is the SOS Brigade so the laws of the universe state that things can't go smoothly.

"Haruhi, there's no choreography... but you just want us to fight as though we really mean it, correct?" Akira asked an impatient Haruhi.

"Yes, that's the idea!" Haruhi replied, as she attached her 'director' armband to the sleeve of her shirt.

"then I'm sure you won't mind... if I make a slight change?" Akira began in a quiet voice as she walked so the she was in between Taniguchi and Haruhi tapping them both lightly on the shoulder, which was apparently a pressure point, causing them both to faint, "Oh my, it seems the cameraman has fainted, it must be this dreadful heat. Kyon you have experience in that field, correct? I suppose you'll have to take over for him."

Why not have Koizumi do it, he may be the lead actor but I get the feeling his role in this movie will probably be about as small as the last one, after all Haruhi seems to just care about giving Asahina screen time, as long as it almost makes sense without him doing much she's happy. See look at him, smiling as usual while he holds the light reflector, well actually he's not smiling it's more like he's glaring.

Reluctantly, I picked up the camera after laying Haruhi out on a bench. I wasn't really sure if Akira had done it because she wanted to keep me out of the fight or if she just didn't want to have to hold back, but either way she had clearly planned this. I couldn't help but wonder what other tricks she had in mind for the movie, maybe this was all part of her plan.

"With this we can truly fight without holding back, but it'll be hard to explain if anyone gets too badly injured or killed so let's try not to let the sort of thing happen, no matter what happens we can claim that either Yuki or I added sfx after shooting or if they wake up before the shooting is done that we set up an optical illusion. I'm looking forward to fighting you two," Akira smiled at Nagato and Asahina.

Earlier Haruhi had said that for this battle scene Asahina and Nagato were supposed to be challenging Akira and I so of course a little bit of amateur acting and that just about brings you up to current.

At this point it had mostly become a battle between Nagato and Akira, as Asahina was quivering in the background, with the way things were going I was sure that if I had seen any of this a year ago I would have never believed my eyes.

I really hated to admit it but from what I'd seen it seemed like Akira was able to fight Nagato evenly. As I stood there holding the camera I didn't have a clue who would win. In the past I'd never had any reason to doubt that Nagato could lose in a fight (of course fights don't really seem to happen often), she was always an invincible guardian, of course after the fiasco back on December 18th she'd apparently sealed off some of her own power in order to prevent something like that happening again. I'd never seen Asahina fight, but I'm sure she can do something in a pinch... probably. As for Akira, it should already be clear that she's dangerous, but she said so herself that she was greatly weakened at the moment and probably wouldn't be able to take on the rest of the SOS Brigade at the moment.

What was the point of this anyway? Couldn't they have just done some bad poses, say some cheesy lines, and be done with it like last time? Why bother having an actual fight, it could have easily been avoided so why did they waste time and energy by fighting each other seriously? It seemed pretty pointless to me, maybe Nagato and Akira just decided to take a page from Haruhi's book of completely purposeless actions.

After some time had passed they seemed to decided that it was going nowhere and called a truce for the moment. Haruhi hadn't specified who was supposed to win this battle, but since Akira was supposed to be the villain it was agreed that we'd pretend that she'd gotten hit by Asahina's 'Mikuru Beam' attack while she was so focused on fighting Nagato.

It was a little bit less than a half an hour before Haruhi woke up, as for Taniguchi... well we left him there and headed to the coffee shop. Haruhi believed that she must have collapsed because she hadn't gotten enough sleep, as she had apparently been working on coming up with a script in her head for the movie, she ended club activities for the day to go home and get some sleep. Well she did tell me that I would have to take the camera home before she left, but we all knew that was going to happen anyway.

The rest of us stayed after she left.

"The truce is over," I was the one who broke the ice cold silence that had swept across the table, "You said you would wait until after club activities today before you did anything."

"Correct," Akira confirmed, giving me an eerie glance as she said the last part, "There's no longer any reason to wait, or any promises holding me back."

If the promise you made to me cause you to hold back then it's your fault for making it in the first place, don't go around blaming me for your problems. I regret that I didn't say it out loud, it was a good retort.

She seemed kind of angry for some reason of course that doesn't really matter much to me, in fact if the person we're against is angry that means we're probably winning. Right?

Koizumi asked a question that I had been wondering about a bit myself, "Exactly what is your belief about Suzumiya, Mitsuki."

Akira looked at him with a shy smile, "I'm afraid I don't have enough information to really have much of an opinion on the matter, all I know is what Kyon knows up to current as well as a few things he will be learning in the near future, and a few scattered speculations at best. I can't tell you if she's a 'god' or whatever it is you lot are labeling her these days, as from the point of view of most people who exist in my world, you lot -and of course Haruhi Suzumiya as well- are just fictional characters."

I'm not sure I understand, could you repeat that, but say it in words a normal person would understand.

"My power as a 'slider' is limited, not so limited as Koizumi's ESP, but I'm unable to freely hop between dimensions," The slider sighed as she contained to explain, "I can only enter dimensions besides my own if I have a 'gateway', this is of course something that can link my dimension to the one I'm traveling to, for me at least the restriction on which gateways I can pass through seems to be dependent on the form of the gateway itself. I can only seem to enter fiction, that is to say any sort of fiction, whether it be manga, novels, anime, cartoons, comics, a voice drama, a newspaper article that contains few facts... there are many more but I'm sure you get the picture. So naturally this world is viewed as little more than fiction to me, just a story I'm reading."

Wait... so in the world she came from there's some kind of fictional story... about us? Well, I can't argue with that, actually, I can kind of imagine it. If I were to write down all the experiences I've had with the SOS Brigade it could probably be a best-selling novel, heck, it'd sell enough to fund the SOS Brigade (not that that would be good). I could call it The Melancholy of- no, that's a off topic, I should get back to the point.

"You won't be able to beat me, you may as well not try... I know that because I read ahead," Akira said with the same tone she'd been using up until now, "By the way, next week, after I return to my world, something really interesting happens to you guys, or I suppose it also doesn't happen... paradoxes tend to be that way. I wish I could stay for long enough to meet that girl as well, but..."

I interrupted her, "Who do you mean 'that girl'?"

"The girl you left behind," the strange slider said, "I suppose it's been a while for you, but I know you haven't forgotten her. Ah... to much foreshadowing would ruin the mystery... I was hoping to solve it, but I won't be able to stay much longer. In any case, I wish you luck Kyon. Continue to do whatever you feel is right, because whether you've realized it or not you're the key to everything..."

Who is she talking about, a girl I left behind? No one come to mind. What was that last part anyway? I don't get it at all. Is she even sane... well I'm probably sane not anymore so I don't really have much right to say weather or not anyone else is.

Then she walked away leaving me with no clue what she was talking about (she should have at least explained a little bit). In the moment as she turned her back to us I noticed something that I knew wasn't good, her hair was beginning to turn black at the ends. I remember what she'd said when she'd talked to me alone before, 'my hair _wasn't_ originally blond... my hair is really _supposed_ to be black,' so if her hair is turning black that must mean she'd already began sealing Haruhi's power right?

Crap.

That means that she's winning.


	6. LiES iNfEcTiOn TRutH

After everything that had happened today, I was glad to finally be home. Unfortunately, it wasn't long after I arrived at my house and had changed into the sweatsuit I had been using as pajamas that Akira appeared again. She was sitting on my bed with a troubled expression.

"A lie." That was the first thing she said.

"What...?" My mind wasn't functioning right, I was too tired to realize just how strange it was that she was sitting on my bed at this time of night.

"A portion of what I've told you up until now was a lie. Also, I left out a few things," She said in a tone that matched her expression, "Even if you aren't working with me, you still deserve to know the full truth, or at least the full extent of what i know and believe to be the truth. I'm sorry for coming at this hour but my time in this world is limited, and with certain circumstances I can't be sure that I'll be able to stay as long as was originally predicted."

That sounds a bit similar to what Nagato said to me during that whole movie escapade, what was it she said again, '_any truth I tell you will grant no proof, because there is no guarantee that I am telling the truth. Not for you at least_.' That's the basic idea of what Akira just said isn't it? Well the first part at least.

Apparently, I was taking too long to respond, so she began talking again.

"I'll start this at the beginning of my real situation. It didn't take long for me to notice there was a distorted world affecting the dimensional balance, I knew as soon as strange things began happening in my world, but it took me a while to locate the distortion. By that time my power alone wasn't enough to enter this world, but I wasn't alone, my two... apprentices lent me their power and with that I was able to arrive here three days ago," Akira said with a very serious gaze, "it took a lot more energy than dimensional travel normally does, because this world is special."

"Special?" I couldn't help but ask, "How?"

"It shouldn't exist," Akira replied, now looking downward, her eyes avoiding mine, "It's has been recreated so many times that it's beginning to detach from the worlds original settings. Allow me to explain: The original version of this world to me is a series of light novels with several events in a somewhat mixed up order, it was later adapted to a manga that differed greatly from the novel and was canceled after it's first volume, next there was an anime with 14 episodes that skipped over several events and played a great deal of the remaining ones out of order, not long after that came the second manga adaption which held all the events in order and is still ongoing now, the anime was rebroadcast in chronological order with an additional 14 episodes to fill the gaps skipped by the first broadcast, several video games were released many being 're-dos' of some of the better arcs or visual novels with branching scenarios, two gag animes were created, a gag manga version was published, then a spin-off/parallel storyline manga was published, and a movie has been made. That makes at least eleven deviations not counting dijoshi and fan fiction. There are so many places they overlap, and many more where they don't, because of this all versions of this world are highly unstable. This particular one... shouldn't exist, it exists on the dimensional plane in exact center of all versions of this world I mentioned before, that said it isn't any of them but rather the space where they overlap. There was no gateway that I could have used to arrive in this variation of your world. Do you understand?"

Not really. She had made about as much sense as Koizumi or Nagato usually do, so I kind of understood some of her spiel, but most of it just went over my head. A normal person wouldn't understand it, right? I mean if she needs a gateway to travel between dimensions, and there was no gateway that would bring her here... How is she here? She didn't even explain why she seems to think this world shouldn't exist, she just said that it was where the others overlapped. What on Earth is she trying to say?

"A little bit," I answered, hoping she was about to explain the things that she'd left out before.

"I had calculated that this variation of the world was the source of the twists in the dimensional plane affecting my world and several others, and I was able to notice that the 'infection' (so to speak) was spreading itself. Haruhi's immense power has been said to to include the ability to create and destroy worlds, the infection took advantage of this and thus made many variations of itself come into existence, those being many of the same ones I mentioned before. Having noticed a dimensional infection on this scale, despite my own power being lessened by it, I knew I had to correct it while I was still able to do so as I was one of the few who could. The only issue was that the infection existed in a place that no gateways led, using my gateways I could only get close to it, I needed a way to 'bridge' a gateway that I had and the infected point on the dimensional plane. Luckily I had the limited edition English version of the first light novel and the English version of the first volume of the second manga, those two worlds are across from each other in the plane around which all the aforementioned variations of this world are circling the single point that is the infected world, these particular books (the ones I said I was lucky to have) just so happen to contain previews of each other a weak link between the two passing directly through the infected point."

She paused, probably to give me a moment to think, as if I would be able to think after hearing all that nonsense.

"I had to divide myself and enter the two gates simultaneously to reach the midpoint -the bridge. Doing so cut all my capabilities in half, and left me nearly powerless upon arrival. Additionally because of the distortions in the time space continuum caused me to overshoot my temporal destination. The infection has probably spread more in the time between when I'd meant to arrive and now. I'm sorry, if I hadn't..."

"Wait!" I said, she immediately stopped talking, "You're going way too fast! What do you mean you 'split' yourself? You came late, by how much? Why are you apologizing to me?"

I'm not sure what good randomly throwing out questions would do, but I was getting caught up in the moment.

"A year," She said, catching me off guard.

"Excuse me?"

"I was a year late."

A year, that's a pretty long time. Wait... a year ago... that would be my first year in high school... the same time my life became chaos. Wouldn't that mean... "...but last year was..."

"The_ infection_ began on your first day of high school, it activated the day you started to talk to Haruhi, it began spreading the day the SOS Brigade was created, and has continued to spread ever since by . If I hadn't come so late, then I wouldn't have had so much trouble with something like this... I wouldn't be looked at as an enemy by the SOS Brigade because you all wouldn't have already been so set against me as an outsider changing the flow of events, I could have even changed things without getting directly involved... but because I'm late the situation's escalated to the degree that I can't stop it on my own anymore... I need your help. Please."

"And... All of this is because of Haruhi?" I asked when my mind finally managed to reason out what she'd been saying. She came here to stop a dimensional infection of some sort but she was late, it stated on the first day of my high school life last year, and now she's asking for my help even though she's been acting so high-and-mighty up until now...

"No," She said continuing her earlier serious tone, "That's the part I'd lied about before. The infection... isn't Haruhi's fault, it's yours."

I must have looked confused because she started flailing her arms as she tried to explain.

"Ah, Sorry! I don't mean you caused it... It's just... It has more relation to you than anyone else! Even if you had known, you couldn't have...!" She calmed herself down, and looked downward, "forgive me, even after all these years of experience, I'm still no good at explaining things of an inhuman nature to normal humans."

"Um..." is all I managed as a reply. I don't understand, but it doesn't looking like Akira is expecting me too at this point, that's kind of convenient in a weird way.

Something about her seemed completely different from before though. Up until now she had mostly acted playful or haughty, and she was a bit convicting in the clubroom earlier today, but now she seemed... I don't know... sincere. What was the reason she lied in the first place? She never said did she?

I tried asking.

"I didn't want you all to be involved with my affairs, I was trying to make sure that you would want nothing to do with me and would be trying to fight a lie while I handled the real problem behind the scenes," She couldn't look me in the eyes, "It's back fired, earlier I though I'd still be able to fix this on my own even though I'm like this, but I can't there's only one way to fix this now and I need your help. I'll still be doing most of the work, but I need some help from Mikuru... or if that's not okay... then I'd like to barrow your library card."

With what she's said her power is, I'd hate to see what she can do in a library... but if it's Asahina she's asking for then that means she probably intends to time travel, and I know from experience that gets pretty complicated. Wait... I'm getting ahead of myself, I never said I'd help her! Actually I said I'd never help her... well that was because of something she was doing to protect us.

So, is she good or bad? "This could all just be a trick! From the time that we met her she's been telling lies right and left, she defiantly can't be trusted!" is what I'd like to say, but that would also mean that she's telling the truth by saying everything she said before was a lie, so that would mean I can trust her now right? Frankly what she had been saying earlier was somehow beginning to make sense, and she seemed sincere enough...

How am I supposed to react to someone who has admitted to being a liar saying something unreasonable? I mean I kind of want to help her, but... I can't tell if shes telling the truth or not. Should I go out on a limb and trust her, or do I stubbornly decide she's up to no good?

"What'll happen if the 'infection' isn't stopped?" I asked suddenly. If she says nothing will happen then she's most likely telling the truth, but then trying to fix it would be pointless. Although if she says it'll become something catastrophic then she may be lying to get her way, but on the off chance that she's not lying I may have to help her anyway, because we may not have much time left.

When did I become a criminal psychology expert?

"I don't know."

What a blunt answer. What happened to the long-winded-ness from before? No more long spiels of nonsense that didn't quite seem to fit with any form of common sense?

"I haven't had the chance to witness a world line where that happens, because the infection is draining my powers I only get one chance to do this and all the clairvoyance abilities were cut of near the beginning of this problem, the only way I would be able to know how this ends would be to live through it and then use time travel to arrive back at this point in time or an earlier one," her tone was a bit strained but she kept going anyway, "although if you want a prediction, I guarantee that _something_ will happen. Possibly simple chaos, possible normalization, possibly total reversal, or the world may even simply collapse in on itself; but those are just theories, at this point anything can happen except nothing. This world should be the last one the effects become evident in but after the infection has spread to cover all other worlds it'll defiantly take an effect in this one as well as all the others."

Oh... I guess that makes sense, well up until the part about 'world line's and 'clairvoyance' and after that I didn't understand again until 'something will happen' but I was lost after that.

I knew I'd probably get another incomprehensible answer, but I had to ask, "what happens if you can't fix this infection-thing?"

"If I fail? It's possible that this world could fall apart. Often I'm seen as an unpredictable element world line record, It's likely that I shouldn't exist... but I've prevented chaos is the world so many times that If I were to disappear it would be a disaster, anyway the point is; I'm basically an incomprehensible variable and when I'm thrown into a situation if I change things to much from how they were meant to be then the world is likely to collapse upon itself. My Failing this mission would likely push this world over it's edge and cause it to collapse causing a chain reaction resulting in the destruction of all infected worlds because to cure the infection I need to fix the problem here. No matter where a person goes there will always be a certain protocol to follow, that's why I need your help."

That last part sounds a lot like something she'd said to me before. Her second day in the club I think. What was it she'd said? Never mind it probably doesn't matter.

"Please, help me change the future."

"What's in it for me?" I asked. Well, it wasn't a serious question, I didn't expect much, besides she'd probably lie.

"Is the knowledge that you'd helped save all worlds from either absolute destruction or true chaos sound good enough? You're more of a pessimist than I thought."

I muttered something along the lines of, "...um... well..."

"But if that's not enough... I'll grant a wish for you, as long as it's something I can do," Akira said in a tone that gave the impression that she really didn't want to.

A wish? Did she just say she was going to grant a wish for me if I helped her? What is she, a Greek goddess, a fairy, a lying otaku? I could figure out what happens next... wait if all of Akira's powers return then what would she be capable of? From the way she talks she's probably pretty incredible.

I guess I was taking to long to respond, "Think about it. Okay? I'll talk to you at school in the morning. On the off chance that you choose to help me and I'm not there... use this."

She handed me a a piece of cloth that was folded over several times and tied up with a blue ribbon. She didn't explain. In fact after handing it to me she muttered, "...not much time..." and then left through my window.

I was left speechless. What do I do now? Should I unwrap whatever was in this bundle, or would something happen if I do?

I guess the better question is, do I _want_ to help her?

Stupid question.

Akira defiantly believed that everything she just told me was true, and if it is I'm doomed. Of course I'm going to help her, even though I'm not really sure what she thinks I can do.


	7. The Plan

I was dead tired that morning. I hadn't managed to get much sleep the night before, and I'd never been much of a morning person. If I didn't have to give Akira an answer, I might have tried skipping school, even though my grades are in bad enough shape as it is. I almost fell asleep twice just walking up that ridiculously steep hill, by the time I got to school I felt like a zombie.

I managed to get some sleep during homeroom, even afterward I was a bit tired, but I could manage.

I slept again during math and by lunchtime I wasn't tired anymore. I ate my lunch, then sat -bored- through the remaining classes until it was time for me to head to the SOS Brigade clubroom and then I sat around until Haruhi dismissed the club for the day. I headed home, like I always do.

It wasn't until I got home and saw the little cloth bundle laying beside my alarm clock that I realized Akira hadn't been there. She'd said she was going to talk to me in the morning, hadn't she? Akira had only been in the SOS Brigade for three days now, it still seemed more normal not seeing her in the clubroom, besides I was tired it's not my fault I didn't notice.

"_If I'm not there... use this._" That's what she said when she handed me the ... well I'm not sure what it is. She was expecting something like this to happen.

I untied the ribbon and started to unfold the cloth. Inside was a crystal pendant hanging on a chain. A necklace? Is this supposed to be a joke? I'm not laughing. I looked at the cloth again, maybe she left some instructions. I'm not sure how I hadn't noticed before but the entire inside of the piece of cloth was covered in a combination of an untidily scrawled kanji and neat cursive English letters. I couldn't read the words she'd written in English but I figured I'd at least be able to read the kanji.

"_If you're reading this then I've failed._  
><em>Go back, take her with you,<em>  
><em>Find me,<em>  
><em>Tell that me that I reached my limit,<em>  
><em>Make sure to keep this with you.<em>"

That's what the kanji said.

I'd have to be an idiot not to understand. '_Go back_', she wants me to go back in time to meet up with her, with Asahina's help of course.

Hasn't Asahina said that she can't use the TPDD without permission from her superiors? They might not let me just randomly go back in time to help someone they've already decided was bad news. That is... unless the one who's supposed to give the approval is Asahina (Adult version), then she would remember going with me, and that's what the 'take her with you' part meant. Although even if I can safely make it to the past how am I supposed to 'find' her, Akira said she arrived here five days ago so as long as it's in that time frame she should be here... but where. I guess I'll just try all the weirdo-mechas in the city and hope I get lucky. The rest was pretty straight forward, unless the English part was 'Plan B'.

Whatever, I needed to be sure I could get to the past before I continued speculating on everything, I took out my cell phone and dialed. She picked up on the second ring, I quickly said, "Hey, Asahina... can we meet up, now?"

She agreed and we wound up meeting up at the usual cafe. After we greeted each other and ordered I cut to the chase.

"I need to go to the past."

"Eh? I can't just..." Asahina's cute flusteredness continued for a bit, "I need permission to use the TPDD... I can't... why do you need to?"

"It has to do with that new girl," I explained vaguely. Asahina wouldn't know that I'm on Akira's side yet, and the group she's working for told her that Akira was bad news, so I can't let Asahina know until the last moment.

I had hoped to whatever deity was willing to hear me out that my life would never become anymore complicated than it was on that day. Of course I had no way of knowing what was going to happen in a few weeks... but thats a story for another day.

Asahina put her palm to her ear as she often seemed to do, I guess that's something she does when contacting the future though I'm not really sure why. Suddenly her expression changed, she seemed startled, how cute.

"That's odd...it's approved," she said in a quiet tone, "...it's like they were waiting for me to ask... it's always like that when you..."

Great! I knew Asahina (big) was looking out for me!

Now I just need to decide where to go... no _when_ is more important right now. Five days ago? Yesterday? Any date between those two would be fine, but I need to be sure I could find Akira, which wouldn't be easy. I mean I don't know where she lives, she didn't designate a meeting spot, she's not really a student at North High, so basically the only times I know she's anywhere are when she was with me but if I show up in those times it'll get confusing. I tried to think about everything she'd said, maybe she knew that this was going to happen all along, maybe there was some sort of clue in what she's said... no nothing. Although it gave me an idea, it was better than nothing.

"The end of the last class, two days ago," I said, "that's when we need to be..."

"um... ok."

We talked for a little while longer before the two of us went off to someplace where no one else would see us. Asahina and I stood facing each other with our hands clasping one another, I closed my eyes and was almost immediately hit with the -now familiar- strange sensation that comes along with time travel. When I opened my eyes again we were inside the main building of North High.

This was the day that Akira had come to the clubroom late, supposedly because she was giving me time to tell the other brigade members what she'd told me and to let them take in that information. That means that in the period of time before she got the the clubroom I may be able to contact her, assuming she's not up to something else during that time. As for where, I can probably find her in the hallway that the clubroom is on, I'll just have to make sure that the me of this time gets into the clubroom before I start waiting for her in the hall.

That much is easy. I managed to pull it off with out a hitch, of course I would because I don't remember having seen myself -or the lovely Asahina- at that time.

The only thing I was worried about was how Akira would react to seeing me, she shouldn't have any reason to suspect that I've come back in time to meet with her and that I'm officially on her side now, and also that she told me... well I don't think she told me everything. I guess that's where the rest of that message came in, and maybe the necklace was proof that I had come from the future.

I waited in the hallway for only a few minutes, and soon the moment of truth came. Akira was walking down the hall, she noticed Asahina and I after only a few seconds and instantly her expression changed. The look she now wore was one of understanding and a hint of disappointment. Her pace quickened but not in such a way that it was noticeable, in fact it may have been my imagination.

Once she had reached us she looked into my eyes and asked in a solemn tone, "I failed, didn't I?"

"That's right," I didn't really know what else to say.

"And you seem to have decided to help me now."

"...yeah."

Of course Asahina didn't understand what was going on, "Huh? Eh... _helping_... but Kyon! She's...!"

"You haven't told her?" Akira said casting a concerned glance at Asahina.

"No, I figured I wouldn't have been allowed to time travel if I had..."

Asahina looked really cute glancing back and forth.

"Could you explain to her in a simple way what I told you? I'd also like to hear about what I'd said to you so that I don't change it."

So I explained that the world had been infected by something that was rapidly multiplying and messing up this world as well as many others and that Akira and her comrades had gone to great lengths to get into this world so she could correct the issue, but that she had been to late and the infection had changed her course so she hadn't been able to do much about it. I also gave a summery of what she'd said would probably happen to the world if were to fail. Then finally I mentioned that Akira had given me a bundled and told me that if I decided to help but she wasn't at school the next day to 'use' it.

Asahina made a face like she was still a bit confused, honestly _I_ was too, I didn't really get all that crap about world-lines and infections, but I at least had a general idea of what she was getting at and Asahina seemed to as well.

"Could you please give me the thing I gave you, Kyon?" Akira asked.

I reached in my pocket and pulled out the necklace and the note, I handed them both to her. Her eyes seemed to light up for a moment when she saw the necklace but she immediately began to read the note and seemed to be finished reading within seconds.

"Perfect..." She muttered, seemingly to herself continuing in an odd tone as though she didn't think we could hear her, "I am a sneaky, underhanded, devious, knieving Slider aren't I? I've played right into..."

It was at that point she seemed to realized that she was speaking out loud and proceeded to clear her throat as though she hadn't said anything at all. I played along because I doubted any good could come of me asking what she was talking about. Still, I was a little curious.

"Right... right... so shall we get going?" Akira asked.

Going where? At least tell us that.

"My world of course, I'd have thought It'd be obvious," The strange girl smirked, "did you not read that note?"

"I don't read English very well." I answered, trying not to sound stupid.

"That's why I put the important part in Kanji," She said with a sigh, "It's not really necessary for you to know all of it anyway... it basically describes my plan, then there was a part that I wrote for myself to avoid confusing you. Anyway nothing dangerous will be happening to either of you, so there's no need for me to explain until we get there. Now then, if you don't have anymore important questions we'd best be off."

There were a lot of things I could question, but I decided it would be better to hold my tongue. We were about to travel to another dimension in order to save the world -which one? All of them I think- anything I was questioning suddenly seemed unimportant.

"Are you ready?"

Even if I weren't ready, I don't think that infection thing is going to give me any time to prepare. I answered, "I'm ready as I'll ever be."

Behind me I heard Asahina's hair swish as she nodded, "I'm Re-ready."

Akira reached out her hands in an obvious motion for us to grab them, naturally we did. I was hit with a near instantaneous feeling of nausea, not quite the same as time-sickness but similar. The world seemed to be spinning around us, and then every thing seemed to just fade away, a moment passed and the world reconstructed itself. For a second or two we were floating above the center of a circle of books that were lying on a wooden floor, then gravity did it's job and we came crashing down.

"Ow..." Asahina said as she began to pick herself up.

"Sorry, usually the landing would be smoother... but as it was I barely had the energy to get us here," Akira said, she didn't look especially tired but then again I guess she's talking about a different kind of energy.

Without knowing what to say to that I took a moment to look around this _so-called_ alternate dimension. There were shelves packed tightly with books stretching out for as far as I could see, the shelves were tall enough that they vanished into a layer of clouds long past where a ceiling would be (I guess she probably uses one of those rolling ladders to reach them, or who knows maybe she can fly). Looking down I saw the aforementioned circle of books, some of them were manga, and others were light novels but they all had Haruhi's name in the title, I was even on the cover of what appeared to be the tenth manga volume.

"What is this place?" I couldn't help but ask.

"Can't you tell?" Akira replied, "This is a _library_."

I sure I was making a very interesting face. This place was _way_ too big to be a library.

"This place is also my home, and I am the head librarian," Akira continued as if she were trying to clear up any misunderstandings, which was helpful.

I still didn't see quite what use it would be for us to be here, I mean it doesn't seem like we'd be able to do much of anything here that we couldn't have done in my and Asahina's world. Akira obviously doesn't have the energy to get all three of us back, so why did we even come here?

"So... what are we going to do now that we're here?"

"We aren't at our final destination yet. The location is right but we're going to go about fifty years into the past."

Oh that makes since... _wait_... fifty years! Isn't that a long time?

"That's time would be just before this world was reached by the infection," Akira explained, "I'll explain the situation to the me of that time, then the two of you will go with her and fix everything, and _if_ the world the two of you came from _still_ exists afterward then we'll take you back to it if not then you can stay in this world or if you'd prefer I'll take you to whatever world you so desire to go to."

That last part made me uneasy, Asahina seemed to be as well. The world we came from might not still exist? Of course I'm worried, but I've come too far to stop now.


	8. Paradox

**A/N: hooray for another stupid authors note! This chapter is pretty short... but it had to be! The next chapter stuff will be happening again I promise! If you don't get some of the time travel stuff I mention in this chapter then just message me... or go Google it.**

**Please R and R  
><strong>

...

"Take as long as you need to prepare yourselves mentally," Akira said calmly, "but I'd like to get this taken care of as soon as possible."

How do I mentally prepare myself to possibly erase the existence of my world.

She gave me a 'not what I meant'-look and said, "I meant for the time travel, but if you're interested it's actually very unlikely that we will fail or that your world will cease to exist."

I'd like to know what's changed since she had failed after our conversation in my room, "How do you figure?"

"That world's time travel theory runs on a pre-destiny system, I don't know all of the details, but in that world the future is actually quite hard to change from its set path, especially because of time travelers like Mikuru-chan. Isn't that right?"

"Th...That's right..." Asahina replied quietly.

Well, I can't argue with that. I'd occasionally been dragged around town with no clue what I was doing just to help Mikuru fulfill missions that probably kept the future in order.

Not that I really understood exactly what we did.

"After all of this there would be reason for me to return to your world... but both of you have seen me after the point in time we left. There are only two possible conclusions: one, you two changed the future, and two I returned after our success to set this event in motion. The first option is -as we discussed- difficult, but we can't rule it out completely. The second option would be more plausible, it's confirmed in the letter that you received from 'me', one of the things I'd written in English was 'I never failed, The message reached in time.'" Akira explained, "Naturally a hint that even after we went back to this time it would still be necessary to go back further."

Wait... So she never actually failed? Then what's the point in all this? Never mind I don't want to know. Aside from Asahina I hate everything about time travel, it hurts my head.

In fact Asahina should just stay in the past and she and I can get married and live happily ever after without any of the complications of time travel. Of course all of that's impossible, I've already met the older Asahina so I know she continues being a time traveler.

"Her little brother would never let you get away with it anyway," Akira suddenly whispered to me.

"She has a brother?" I asked quietly.

"Maybe, maybe not... I can't say for sure. It's complicated."

Whatever.

"Wait... How did you know what I was thinking?"

"I still have some tricks up my sleeves."

OK, she's creeping me out a bit.

"Mikuru, are you ready to take us back fifty years?"

Asahina stuttered a little bit, "But I haven't gotten permission to yet..."

"This dimension is not connected to your future, permission would be impossible to get."

"Huh... Oh... I'm ready."

You know the drill, right? This has been happening a lot lately. We all held hands, closed our eyes, I felt sick but was pretty used to it by now, and we open our eyes in the past as we let go of each others hands.

There aren't any immediate changes to our surroundings. So either the time travel didn't work or nothing had changed at all in this library in the past fifty years... well there was no circle of Haruhi books on the floor.

All is quiet, but the silence is soon broken by a now familiar voice:

"I knew someone was coming, but I never expected it'd be you... or should I say me?"

Looking up I see Akira, she's dressed in the same odd blue jacket-thing she wore the day we were shooting for the second movie, and her fluffy blond hair was instead a waterfall of shining midnight black. There was an aura around her I hadn't noticed before, an air of strength that couldn't be beaten by even the toughest foes.

"The paradox would deepen if you'd known we were coming," replied the blond Akira who was now standing beside me still in her North high uniform, "Because I didn't know when it was me rather than you, and if I'd known I would have stopped the problem, though then I wouldn't need to travel to this point in the first place."

I swear she's _trying_ to confuse me now.

I hope whoever is reading this still knows what's going on, it'll make more sense later... probably.

"So what's the situation?" The black haired Akira asked, "I assume you wouldn't have come if it weren't important... paradox can be dangerous, you should know that better than I do."

"An infection in a world that seems to have an infinite possibility of expansion. It's ruined the balance of the world... the distortion has weakened me, as I am I can do nothing to stop it but you should be able to," The blond Akira stopped for a breath, "The future of the world(s) is in your hands."

The blond Akira then held out her hand as if preparing for a handshake. The black-haired Akira seemed reluctant, "Are you sure?"

"I'm passing the baton to the generation. You know now what will happen next, with just that the world line should change... I have no '_reading stiener_' and I have no place in the new future. If I am to disappear I'd rather it be by my own hand."

"Brave words," she replied taking the other's hand, "I hope they aren't for vanity."

I didn't quiet get what they were talking about, it sounded interesting, but there was obviously something missing.

For a moment nothing happened, then the blond Akira vanished without a trace.

I was startled, stuttering as I searched for something to say, something like 'what just happened?' or 'what did you do?' but I didn't manage to get anything useful out.

"Mikuru-chan and Kyon, I believe? Sorry for not greeting you up to this point. Though you already know 'me', and I already know a good deal about you both, this is technically the first time I've met you," the remaining Akira said bowing the slightest bit, "Allow me to introduce myself; I am Akira Mitsuki, Head Librarian and keeper of the books of this library, slider, master of many things, and Guardian of whatever appears to be right by my judgment."

Those titles sound made up, but I'm smart enough to know better than to say that out loud. Anyway after being around Haruhi a year I'm used to going along with stupid made-up titles.

"Well, we can rest here for now, or we we could go on..."

I interrupted her, "What about Akira... I mean the other one... where'd she go?"

"Present and future aren't meant to meet, we crossed the line and one of us had to disappear... that much should be obvious. Besides even had we not shook hands she'd have disappeared anyway, the future changed so that incarnation of me would have ceased to exist soon, because this world follows the world-line time travel theory. Some of her memories were transferred to me before she vanished; so I now have a complete understanding of the situation. You don't have to feel sad for _our_ sake, she will live on in her memory inside me. From this time there's a year before the infection begins to affect this world, you two have had a long day... you can rest here as long as you'd like."

Transferred memories? Is that like Nagato's synchronization thing? It's not like I mind but it'd be nice if she would give a clear, understandable answer from time to time.

I guess I could go for a bit of downtime. Maybe I'll even be able to understand what's going on.


	9. Side B

**A/N: If you want you can completely ignore the side B part as the dialogue will mostly be things you've already read if you actually read up to this point... but you should probably read the part before it at least.**

-._.-._.-

We stayed at the library for three months. In that time many things happened. We were able to meet the other residents of the library, the friends that Akira had been so intent to save. Akira tutored me, apparently she had realized I was in need of the help. I did miss Haruhi, Nagato, my sister, my parents, even Koizumi, (you get the point); but it's not as if we only had lazy days.

During that time Akira had also explained what she had planned in great detail, and I understood just how risky it was going to be. It was an all or nothing bet, if it didn't work we wouldn't be able to realize in time to fix it; because what we were about to do would either strengthen the infection or destroy it.  
>That would be my job. I was the center point of the plan.<p>

We were about to return to Asahina and my dimension, but if I had to guess... We were about to leave the eye of the storm.

"Are you ready?" Akira asked the unnecessary question, when Asahina and I nodded she continued, "It may hurt a bit, I remind you your dimension lies in a location that I can't reach through a direct gate, to get there we'll have to be split in two and travel to the two worlds on opposite sides of yours, we'll recombine at the central point - that being your world. You don't have very much experience with this sort of travel to begin with so I'm sorry that your second time is going to be so difficult. You're sure you're willing to go through with this?"

It's stupid for her to ask that sort of question now, after coming this far it would be pointless to stop.

We nodded again and she took both our hands. Akira's expression in the moment before I closed my eyes seemed to say 'I'm sorry', but it didn't register because as soon as my eyes were closed I knew why she was worried it would hurt... Because it did. The nauseating blow of familiar sickness was welcome compared to the feeling that my entire being was slowly being torn apart molecule by molecule. All sense of anything around me blurred as the world

was broken down as well, the only remaining sensations were Akira's firm grip on my right hand and Asahina's on my left. Time didn't seem to flow normally, had it been long or short... I didn't know. Finally, the world seemed to return, and it felt myself being reconstructed in much the same way a baby builds a lopsided tower out of blocks. For the most part it seemed everything was over, I still had a splitting headache (no pun intended), and I didn't open my eyes until Akira let go of my hand.

"We're here..." She said showing no signs of discomfort, "All in one piece. I assume both of you are fine?"

"Yeah, I have a bit of a headache though..." I reported. At least the landing was better this time.

"I... I'm okay..." Asahina stammered.

"Oh good, I was partly worried that something weird would happen; like you two would be body-swapped, or that one of you might not be put together the right way when we were recombined."

Note to self:_ later make sure I'm not missing any body parts._

"Well it would have been pretty simple to fix either of those problems, but we are rather short on time."

Akira had explained earlier that when she enters another world she can only stay -without consequences- there for the amount of time covered by the gateway, in this case the novel covers a time span of about six months (give or take). However for each person she takes with her the amount of time she can stay is cut down. After factoring in that the three of us had gone through two gates (because of the split) Akira had calculated that we probably would only have a week. That's not very much time.

The first part of the plan alone would take three days, that would leave us with only another four rest. Well I'm sure things will work out, they always do around Haruhi.

"Isn't it about time we start?" I asked, not wanting to dwell on the idea of anything going wrong.

Akira nodded without saying anything and looked over at Asahina.

"Right..." the adorable time traveler said, "I'll see you later... Kyon."

Asahina and Akira grasped each others hands and disappeared into the future in the time it took me to blink.

-._.-._.-

**SIDE B:**

Mikuru and I arrived in the empty hallway that we had been in before we'd left this world before.

"Now I'll handle everything from here, you return to the time Kyon and you left from."

Before we could destroy the infection -thus changing the future again- the future had to be corrected in order to put in place the events that brought us to where we now are. That could only be my job. I would live through the events in this world for the next three days until I had caught up to when Kyon agrees to help me.

Meanwhile Mikuru had no other part in the plan besides returning to her usual duties that had been interrupted.

Mikuru and I exchanged farewells and see-you-agains before she left for a time a few days further in the future.

I began to walk down the hallway to the SOS Brigade (or technically literature club) clubroom. I made sure to remember to change my appearance to avoid inconsistencies. I even took the extra precaution of disguising my presence so that wouldn't realize I wasn't the same as before, though Yuki was the only one likely to notice.

The earlier me would have already found a way to distract Haruhi so all I needed to do was wait by the door of the clubroom until the right moment. Minutes dragged on like hours.

And then I finally heard my cue: "Is it possible that Akira and Suzumiya are alone together right now?"

The door creaked, ruining my entrance, "I am not, I simply wished to give you lot some time to talk amongst yourselves about what I had told Kyon earlier. Although I did speak to Haruhi. I told her that I had seen a _Zashiki Warashi_ near the bamboo thicket on the other side of the grounds, needless to say she raced off in that direction with a hopeful expression. She'll likely spend another hour searching in vain, so you have about that long to ask me whatever you please."

Perfect. They were all glaring at me. I could almost swear I sensed a killing intent coming from the smiley yes-man... almost.

Kyon did his usual task as the straight-man by asking a pointless question, "and _was_ there a _Zashiki Warashi_?"

I laughed and answered with a joke, "Of course not, as much as my lot doesn't particularly care about Haruhi in normal circumstances it would be foolish of me to expose her to certain paranormal things and get even further on this lot's bad side. Though if you're interested in _Zashiki Warashi_ I could _help_ you find one. God knows you could use the blessing."

I tried to suppress my urge to smile._  
><em>

"Why haven't you already began to do what you came to this place for?" Asahina asked, she seemed a bit out of character.

"Because for certain reasons that will remain undisclosed I will be taking no action until tomorrow afternoon," I replied dully to retain my mysterious appearance, "You can relax, I will not go back on my word."

"Just to be clear," Koizumi began, "You plan to seal off the portion of Suzumiya's powers that is affecting the world that you came from?"

"That is indeed my plan," I replied, then decided to get a bit of revenge for that killing intent, "Do you intend to attempt to talk me out of doing so? Or perhaps you think there's a better way for me to achieve the same goal? I don't see any reason that some one like you should be upset as my plan will have little or no affect on your life, Itsuki Koizumi. In fact, if I were to have my way the workload of your Organization would likely be less."

_It's really fun to lie to liars..._ they all probably thought I was completely serious, but of course given the situation they had no reason to think it was all an act.

Smiley's facade broke. He was clearly angry, having pushed me up against the nearest wall and breathing face that he was making was one that would normally be intimidating, but on him it was funny after seeing his perpetual demon smile. Though I'm sure he thought I was scared and merely hiding my fear.

"That power is something that Suzumiya was born with! You shouldn't be trying to limit it!" the tension in his voice had such a pressure that it could have flattened a truck in much the same way a steamroller would, "Someone like you should be able to come up with a better way to solve this!"

Admittedly I was a bit caught up in the moment when I replied without wavering, "I understand what you're saying. Normally your eyes are like mirrors that keep anyone from being able to see your true nature, but as you are now I can see right through you. You're nothing more than a coward and a hypocrite. You're afraid that if the amount of power Haruhi holds decreases then the Organization will have less need of subordinates watching her and that you'll be cast from her side. You say that I shouldn't limit her power but is that not exactly what your pathetic organization is doing by keeping her monitored constantly? Furthermore, how can you be sure that Haruhi was born with the power she currently holds, that's what you were told by that organization which holds more liars than only you, there are plenty of other explanations for the current scenario, however whatever the true case maybe I don't have enough time left to create a plan that will keep everyone happy."

His grip slackened, and he began to stutter as he fell to his knees, "...I...I."

I ignored the obvious rising tension in the room and began to fix my uniform where it had been messed up by his violent grip.

Kyon stepped forward blocking Smiley as if he expected me to attack with more than just words.

"Akira," he said, I watched a shiver run down his spine as he continued, "I will never be on your side, I don't care about your stupid dimension, but the members of this club are my friends and I won't let you hurt them like this."

I looked at him and smiled softly, "You'll regret this choice... Kyon."

"...What's going on?"

It's Haruhi. What horrible timing, seems the previous me didn't do a very good job distracting her.

"Oh, while we were waiting for you we thought we'd partake in a bit of role play," I made up a quick lie, trying to sound convincing, "I must say these two most certainly get into their characters very well."

Haruhi didn't seem convinced but she shrugged it off, "That's perfect, I was thinking it was about time the SOS Brigade made a second movie. This time Yuki, the alien mage, and Mikuru, the combat waitress from the future, will join forces to defeat a common enemy, that's Akira, she'll be an evil girl from another dimension. Koizumi is of course still a powerful esper that has fallen for Mikuru. Oh, Kyon you can be in it too, we'll just get your idiot friends to do your old job, let's see... you'll be Akira's sidekick or something like that."

"I'm the villain? I'd be honored, and you're even giving me a sidekick, well it's nice to have someone on my side."

I felt as if I'd already been playing the role before it had been assigned.

Naturally you know what happens next. We go out to shoot some of the movie and I had my not-so epic battle with Yuki- we had both been holding back so it really wasn't a very good fight. Then we went to the usual cafe and I went along with what the other me had mentioned, formulating an appropriate lie to keep the time line consistent.

And then I went to Kyon's house and waited for him to arrive. When he appeared he was tired and seemed to be ignoring me as though I were a hallucination brought on by stress.

"A lie." I said, breaking the fragile silence.

"What...?"Kyon murmured. Darn it, he's confused.

"A portion of what I've told you up until now was a lie. Also, I left out a few things," I tried to be as clear as possible in explaining, even though some of what I'm saying would still be a lie, "Even if you aren't working with me, you still deserve to know the full truth, or at least the full extent of what i know and believe to be the truth. I'm sorry for coming at this hour but my time in this world is limited, and with certain circumstances I can't be sure that I'll be able to stay as long as was originally predicted."

I paused. He didn't seem to have anything to say so I continued to speak.

"I'll start this at the beginning of my real situation. It didn't take long for me to notice there was a distorted world affecting the dimensional balance, I knew as soon as strange things began happening in my world, but it took me a while to locate the distortion. By that time my power alone wasn't enough to enter this world, but I wasn't alone, my two... apprentices lent me their power and with that I was able to arrive here three days ago, it took a lot more energy than dimensional travel normally does, because this world is special."

"Special? How?" He asked with the most confused face I'd seen on him yet.

"It shouldn't exist," I looked downward as I tried to find appropriate words to describe what I needed to convey, "It's has been recreated so many times that it's beginning to detach from the worlds original settings. Allow me to explain: The original version of this world to me is a series of light novels with several events in a somewhat mixed up order, it was later adapted to a manga that differed greatly from the novel and was canceled after it's first volume, next there was an anime with 14 episodes that skipped over several events and played a great deal of the remaining ones out of order, not long after that came the second manga adaption which held all the events in order and is still ongoing now, the anime was rebroadcast in chronological order with an additional 14 episodes to fill the gaps skipped by the first broadcast, several video games were released many being 're-dos' of some of the better arcs or visual novels with branching scenarios, two gag animes were created, a gag manga version was published, then a spin-off/parallel storyline manga was published, and a movie has been made. That makes at least eleven deviations not counting dijoshi and fan fiction. There are so many places they overlap, and many more where they don't, because of this all versions of this world are highly unstable. This particular one... shouldn't exist, it exists on the dimensional plane in exact center of all versions of this world I mentioned before, that said it isn't any of them but rather the space where they overlap. There was no gateway that I could have used to arrive in this variation of your world. Do you understand?"

He doesn't understand, the question was just polite. I didn't really expect him to understand it anyway.

"A little bit," was his answer.

"I had calculated that this variation of the world was the source of the twists in the dimensional plane affecting my world and several others, and I was able to notice that the 'infection' (so to speak) was spreading itself. Haruhi's immense power has been said to to include the ability to create and destroy worlds, the infection took advantage of this and thus made many variations of itself come into existence, those being many of the same ones I mentioned before. Having noticed a dimensional infection on this scale, despite my own power being lessened by it, I knew I had to correct it while I was still able to do so as I was one of the few who could. The only issue was that the infection existed in a place that no gateways led, using my gateways I could only get close to it, I needed a way to 'bridge' a gateway that I had and the infected point on the dimensional plane. Luckily I had the limited edition English version of the first light novel and the English version of the first volume of the second manga, those two worlds are across from each other in the plane around which all the aforementioned variations of this world are circling the single point that is the infected world, these particular books (the ones I said I was lucky to have) just so happen to contain previews of each other a weak link between the two passing directly through the infected point."

I paused again, allowing time for him to mentally catch up, once he appeared to be ready I continued again.

"I had to divide myself and enter the two gates simultaneously to reach the midpoint -the bridge. Doing so cut all my capabilities in half, and left me nearly powerless upon arrival. Additionally because of the distortions in the time space continuum caused me to overshoot my temporal destination. The infection has probably spread more in the time between when I'd meant to arrive and now. I'm sorry, if I hadn't..."

"Wait!" He interrupted and I immediately stopped, he began to fire off questions at random, "You're going way too fast! What do you mean you 'split' yourself? You came late, by how much? Why are you apologizing to me?"

Does he even understand what he's asking for? It was difficult enough to summarize, but explaining in detail would be an impossible feat at this time period.

"A year," I decided to at least answer one of the questions, after all my purpose in this time plane was to get him interested in helping me so that we wouldn't alter the time stream.

"Excuse me?"

"I was a year late."

He was lost in thought for a moment, but then the realization seemed to hit him,"...but last year was..."

"The_ infection_ began on your first day of high school, it activated the day you started to talk to Haruhi, it began spreading the day the SOS Brigade was created, and has continued to spread ever since by . If I hadn't come so late, then I wouldn't have had so much trouble with something like this... I wouldn't be looked at as an enemy by the SOS Brigade because you all wouldn't have already been so set against me as an outsider changing the flow of events, I could have even changed things without getting directly involved... but because I'm late the situation's escalated to the degree that I can't stop it on my own anymore... I need your help. Please."

"And... All of this is because of Haruhi?"

There can be other culprits than Haruhi, Kyon, didn't you learn that on December 18th? I thought to myself, but didn't dare say it out loud, this is too fragle of a matter to take risks.

"No, that's the part I'd lied about before. The infection... isn't Haruhi's fault, it's yours," I said what needed to be said, the honest truth.

There was a confused look on his face, if I continued to explain in such a serious tone he'd never realize that I'm really not a bad person. I switched to a false flustered tone, "Ah, Sorry! I don't mean you caused it... It's just... It has more relation to you than anyone else! Even if you had known, you couldn't have...! Forgive me, even after all these years of experience, I'm still no good at explaining things of an inhuman nature to normal humans."

"Umm..." Kyon started but trailed off, he continued a moment later, "Why did you lie in the first place?"

"I didn't want you all to be involved with my affairs, I was trying to make sure that you would want nothing to do with me and would be trying to fight a lie while I handled the real problem behind the scenes," I continued to pretend to be flustered by acting as though I couldn't look him in the eyes, "It's back fired, earlier I though I'd still be able to fix this on my own even though I'm like this, but I can't there's only one way to fix this now and I need your help. I'll still be doing most of the work, but I need some help from Mikuru... or if that's not okay... then I'd like to barrow your library card."

He could understand that I was now telling the truth (even though he didn't realize that a good bit of what I'd said just now was made up on the spot) and was trying to decide whether or not to help me.

"What'll happen if the 'infection' isn't stopped?"He asks.

It's most likely a test. All the time he spends hanging out with the virtual psychiatrist of the SOS brigade (aka Mr. Smiley guy) seems to have caused him to have a reasonable understanding of basic psychology. If I say nothing will happen then there's no reason for him to help, if I say something horrible will happen he will become suspicious of me again, so any clear answer is defiantly out of the question.

Once again the truth becomes a handy weapon. "I don't know."

"I haven't had the chance to witness a world line where that happens, because the infection is draining my powers I only get one chance to do this and all the clairvoyance abilities were cut of near the beginning of this problem, the only way I would be able to know how this ends would be to live through it and then use time travel to arrive back at this point in time or an earlier one," it was becoming more and more difficult for me to explain the situation, "although if you want a prediction, I guarantee that _something_ will happen. Possibly simple chaos, possible normalization, possibly total reversal, or the world may even simply collapse in on itself; but those are just theories, at this point anything can happen except nothing. This world should be the last one the effects become evident in but after the infection has spread to cover all other worlds it'll defiantly take an effect in this one as well as all the others."

With the events that had occurred so far I've used up about two days of our one week time period, because the important thing isn't the actual passage of time but the events that take place during that time, or at least in this case it seems to be like that. How inconvenient, that would mean we can only initiate about ten more events. Perhaps that wasn't the case and rather the time was shortened because the two I'd brought with me were so far away from me both physically and temporally. It's also possible that the time was shorter than I'd calculated to begin with. I could only hope that what we had would be enough.

He asked another unnecessary question, "what happens if you can't fix this infection-thing?"

"If I fail? It's possible that this world could fall apart. Often I'm seen as an unpredictable element world line record, It's likely that I shouldn't exist... but I've prevented chaos in the world so many times that If I were to disappear it would be a disaster, anyway the point is; I'm basically an incomprehensible variable and when I'm thrown into a situation if I change things to much from how they were meant to be then the world is likely to collapse upon itself. My Failing this mission would likely push this world over it's edge and cause it to collapse causing a chain reaction resulting in the destruction of all infected worlds because to cure the infection I need to fix the problem here. No matter where a person goes there will always be a certain protocol to follow, that's why I need your help. That's why... Please, help me change the future."

"What's in it for me?"

Hmmm, another test? In that case I'll test him as well.

"Is the knowledge that you'd helped save all worlds from either absolute destruction or true chaos sound good enough? You're more of a pessimist than I thought. But if that's not enough... I'll grant a wish for you, as long as it's something I can do," I would do it if I had to, but anything he wishes for is likely to mess up the balance of this world, it could be troublesome.

He looked a bit puzzled, thinking seriously, trying to decide if I was really capable of such a thing.

Two days worth of time was gone in the course of only eight or so hours, meaning I only had a short amount of time left for the truly difficult part. I need to hurry, I can't waste anymore time in this frame, "Think about it. Okay? I'll talk to you at school in the morning. On the off chance that you choose to help me and I'm not there... use this."

I handed him the parcel that had previously been handed to him by 'me', though the only things in it were the note and a necklace with a crystal which I had stored enough power in for the other me to use it and return to the library along with Kyon and Mikuru. I left as soon as I finished handing it to him, vanishing out the window.

"Crap... there's not much time left... we need to hurry, Kyon had better be ready when I get there..." I said as I transported myself to the time Mikuru and I had left from, fully completing the circle.

Kyon was waiting just as I'd left him, though suffice to say I'd only left him for about a minute or so.

Out of courtesy I asked anyway, "Have you been waiting long."

In a familiar sarcastic tone he answered my useless question, "No, I just got here myself."


	10. the Only exception

**A/N: Sorry for another mostly speech driven chapter. At least there's some drama.  
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...

In almost no time at all Akira appeared in front of me. She was wearing the North High uniform and her hair was blond like it had been when I'd first met her, but soon she was suddenly wearing her strange blue clothing and her hair was black again. As though it were the most normal thing in the world to disappear and reappear moments later or to change appearances at will, she asked, "Have you been waiting long?"

She should already know the answer, she left less than a minute ago. I answered with a cliqued line anyway, "No, I just got here myself."

"By the way," She started in a casual tone, "We're behind schedule. The amount of time I spent in the future should have been half a day, but my internal clock is telling me it's been two days since we entered this world, so since I went to the future almost immediately after we arrived that four times the amount of time that has passed has been counted. Either it's counting based on the occurrence of important events or times passing in this world has been altered, the second being more likely."

"Um... What does that mean?" I asked. If she's already used two days of time we probably won't have enough time left to finish the rest of the plan, she never told me what the consequences of her not making it back to her world within the time limit were but I assumed it would be really bad.

"It's likely that the flow of time has been sped up but the events occurring in that time are not sped up, causing something that would normally take a half of a day to take two full days... but since we arrived in this world in this time plane it shouldn't be possible for the infection to be interfering because it hadn't taken effect until much later. The infection hadn't reached my world yet in the time we came from so I've had no direct contact with it, meaning the infection should have no effect on me or my powers at the moment; as for you, you were one of the first infected but you were probably able to develop an immunity to it in the three months that you stayed in the library so it should no longer have an affect on you whatsoever, and the same should go for Mikuru as well," She paused, then continued with a disconcerting expression, "However... if none of us could possibly be affected by the infection then the only way that time could be estranged like this is if someone were manipulating it. That would have to mean that there's someone directly trying to prevent us from correcting the world balance."

That's strange, I think I was able to actually understand what she was saying... 'time's become strange but it can't be any of our faults so it must be because there's a bad guy, and now we're running out of time', or something like that at least.

"Do you think we'll still be able to pull of the plan?" I asked.

"No." She answered bluntly.

"But then..." I started, I was going to ask 'but then what are we going to do?' but she interrupted me.

"We'll have to use plan B," She said, "and it's going to much more difficult... for you."

Actually I hadn't even been aware that we had a plan B, weren't we only supposed to have one chance, an all or nothing bet. If plan B takes less time then why wasn't it our plan to begin with? The last part of what she said had been whispered it hadn't even registered in my mind till a moment later. Wait... why does it make things harder for just me?

"Well it'll take less time anyway..." Akira trailed off, " Regarding plan B: I believe I said something like this to you before, 'It began on your first day of high school, activated the day you started to talk to Haruhi, began spreading the day the SOS Brigade was created, and has continued ever since.'"

"Yeah that was not long before you left... what about it?" I asked, really hoping she wasn't about to say something completely ridiculous. As usual... my hopes were not answered.

"The you I'm currently talking to is immune to the infection because of various circumstances, however the you in this time period is a carrier (though completely unaffected by it) of the infection contracting it on the first day of high school and it will be latent until he comes in contact with Haruhi Suzumiya. Of course the two of us are here on a mission to stop the infection at all costs, but we don't have very much time on our hands... Do you see where I'm going with this?" She stopped and asked suddenly.

Not at all, that's not enough information to really understand what you're planning.

For the first time completely ignoring my internal dialogue, Akira continued, "So then... you see that I intend to make a copy of the current you, alter one of your memories and have the altered one replace the you of this time period?"

Wait... what?

There's a huge gap in logic between that plan and the summery of our situation from before! How on Earth would something like that work? Wait... no it actually makes sense, well a little bit. This could work...

No. No. No. There's to many holes in that plan! For starters; what's going to happen to the me (from this time), she's not seriously planning to get rid of him is she? But it's not like she can just let him walk around seeing as he's carrying a dangerous infection. And why does she need to clone me and mess up my memories? Couldn't I just take his place until those events had passed or something?

"Not enough time. That would take months, while we at most have a few more days (without consequence); theoretically, you could do that but you would have to stay in _this_ world for the rest of your life and would be stripped of anything about you that is beyond the scope of normal human ability (though I suppose this being -most likely- your original world, and you not appearing to have any non-human powers to begin with this wouldn't be that serious of a consequence). Also it would cause a very serious paradox; because there is no guarantee that simply replacing the you of this time until after the SOS Brigade is formed would prevent the infection as we don't know for sure that it couldn't be triggered by another event, for that reason if we were to try this plan rather than staying until those events pass you would just have to wait for yourself to catch up with real time, repeating the entire first year you spent in high school and the beginning of the second year knowing full well everything that was going to happen next..." Akira spoke in an extremely serious tone, she paused for a long time which made the moment even more tense.

Actually... I hadn't thought of that. That would be a very difficult thing to do...

She'd been looking downward throughout the speech until this point, but she suddenly looked up, revealing a sad expression as she continued, "Do you really think you would be able to live like that... through all of those events without changing anything? The incident where Ryouko Asakura tried to kill you to see Haruhi's reaction? That time when you kissed Haruhi in the closed space? The time travel mess on Tanabata? The murder mystery on the mysterious island? The chaotic baseball game? The whole fiasco that the movie caused? The weird cave cricket in that closed space-like plane of existence with the computer club president? Everything that happened on December 18th? That situation with the blizzard? What you, Yuki, and Mikuru did after that in order to correct time? The accidental meeting with Sasaki- _opps that hasn't happened yet, forget I said anything_. Possibly even the beginning of this event (that is my joining the SOS brigade to stop the infection)? In any case, the question remains. Are you telling me that you are willing to go through all of these events a second time, knowing everything ahead of time? Could you really do that without once giving into the temptation to do something to lessen your own burden or that of someone close to you?"

"I...I..." I started to say something, but wasn't able to. I knew that it was more than just that preventing that plan from being effective, I had realized -somehow- that it could become a loop. Starting on the day I start high school and ending at this time when we have to make a decision on what to do with the current situation, who's to say something like that hadn't already happened... oh right, that'd be me, since I don't remember having lived through these events hundreds of times that would prove that I haven't. _Right?_

"I would have altered your memories," Akira said in response to my thoughts, "I know that no normal human would be able to stand living through such critical and traumatizing situations that they've faced before without doing anything different, so I would have reset your memory to the way it had been when your originally started high school. However there is actual proof, my time limit, if you had done all of this before you would have been under the effect of my time limit and would not have been able to leave this world to go to mine because one of the side effects of staying in a world past the time limit is becoming unable to leave by any means; and as I mentioned earlier it also strips powers to the point where the affected person has the abilities of an average human, as such it's not guaranteed that my memory manipulation would stay intact it might would become flawed so you may would remember some things, and I sure that at some point you would realize that you were aging unless I also manipulated your physical appearance... but also if something like that were possible and continued for too many times... you would probably die."

Those are some pretty dangerous theoretical side effects... but if most of that's true she'd probably die almost instantly if she surpassed the time limit seeing as she claims to be older than human comprehension. Well I guess all of this just means we shouldn't go with that plan...

"No... wait. It's probably better that we did use that plan, also the memory and physical manipulation."

"What? But weren't you completely against it up until now?" I was shocked, I wouldn't have been able to answer any other way if I'd tried.

"All of the flaws that I mentioned in that plan... it's possible that you're an exception. The only exception," Akira said with a tone that seemed to say 'I know it sounds crazy but trust me', she explained, "The time limit might have no effect on you... this would be because you're a normal human (probably) and because you're originally a resident of this world (probably). Or possibly that you coincidentally have an ability that cancels it out (probably not). Besides the possibility of creating a loop is very small, and using this plan would also fill in the major problem presented by my earlier plan... but naturally I'll leave the choice up to you, because it's you that would be effected most by all this."

She's giving me another important world-saving choice then? How many times is this going to happen anyway?


	11. the one who was never there

Right, so I have to decide _again_ something that will affect the fate of the world. That's just great. When was it decided that all weirdos would consult with me before doing anything strange that would affect the fate of the universe? Well I guess it is something I'd like to know about... but I'd rather not have that kind of decision on my shoulders. Honestly... I'm just a normal guy.

At least this time it's pretty clear what to choose. Akira (aka the apparently nearly all knowing girl that's having me make this important decision) herself said that it would probably be for the best, the only reason she's even giving me the option to choose seems to be because she doesn't want to infringe upon my free will too much what with altering my memories and such...

Come to think of it this plan is _really_ creepy. First Akira is going to change my physical appearance back to how I looked in my first year of high school, then she's going to erase all my memories that happened after the day I entered high school, and finally I'm going to take the place of the me in that time after Akira get's rid of him -I don't even want to know how- and I'll live out my days without realizing that it's all something I've done before. It actually bothers me a little that Akira is able to calmly assert this as the best option when she was against it moments ago.

At this point, we don't have time to look for a better plan. I know that, but still... it's like the me I currently am is going to completely disappear.

"Could you not erase my memories? I mean I know I couldn't go through all of that with them but, maybe just hide them or something with some sort of timer so that if this whole situation occurs again I'd be able to remember it?" I suggested.

"I will remember." She said, "In my world, come fifty years, if such a time as this one should ever occur again... I'm confident that I would remember."

"You've got me there," I said with a sigh. I guess it was asking a bit much, if I still had my memories -even if they were sealed somehow- it's possible they could come out at some point that I shouldn't have them, and then I'd probably change the past.

"Oh, I see..." Akira giggled a little bit, and continued in her somewhat creepy tone but it turned to a more thoughtful tone as she spoke, "You're afraid that the current you will disappear. You won't, you know. Even if the mind has forgotten the body will still remember, so even though you yourself won't realize it your body's instinctive actions and reactions will set _you_ apart from the previous you, because that body of yours has experienced many strange things that the you who entered high school for the first time would have never imagined existing in reality. And I... will also remember the current you, just as I will remember the _me_ you first met, and if no where else _you _will continue to exist in my memory."

Ah, another explanation that I can't quite understand... well I do understand but it feels like there's something deeper behind it than what I'm getting out of it, maybe I'm over-thinking things. Point is, I'll still be around, even though I won't be.

"Well, I guess this is really the only option we have," I said with a shrug.

"Yeah," She replied, "So, you consent to it then?"

"I pretty much have to."

"That's true..." She smiled, "Are you ready?"

There's nothing to prepare, I'm going backwards. I reply, "as I'll ever be."

She looks at me for a moment with a sad expression as if to say 'I'm sorry', before reaching toward me with her right hand. For only an instant it hurts, my whole body feels like it's on fire, then... I can feel nothing. The edges of my mind became fuzzy, everything was breaking apart and flying away like dust on the wind.

I'm tired...

Huh? Who is this girl in front of me? She seems familiar. Do I know her?

She's wearing a North High uniform and has long black hair, she mutters under her breath, "Okay, phase one, complete."

What is she talking about?

"You look a bit pale... Are you okay?" She asks.

Of course not, I just walked up that big hill just to get to school! The government should put escalators in the sidewalk with all that tax money they're taking. Still I answer, "I'm fine, just a bit out of breath."

"Oh, it's almost time for class to start," She said with a faint smile, "you should probably get going... I'm going to stick around right here for a bit."

"Uh... right," I replied weakly. I couldn't help but think; what a strange girl.

As I was about to enter the building I looked back but I didn't see any signs that there had been anyone there, so I guess it must've just been my imagination. Stupid hill making me hallucinate... still, I wonder who that girl was.


End file.
